It is difficult to assess the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly referred to as COP26, and the resulting Glasgow Climate Pact as anything other than a failure.
Yes, it is the first U.N. climate agreement that explicitly targets fossil fuels, and coal in particular, as driving climate change. It recognizes that significant — near 50% — cuts in emissions over the next decade are required to hit the increasingly urgent goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. It produced new pledges on carbon trading, coal finance, deforestation and methane gas pollution.
But the final agreement is a disappointment. It is considerably diminished from drafts circulated only days before. More alarming are the omissions. If the United Nations Development Program is correct, then COP26 will result in a world that warms 2.5 degrees Celsius, which means that the key goal of the 2015 Paris agreement — holding warming to 1.5 Celsius — will not be met. That condemns millions, if not billions, of people to lives of greater misery, hardship and, in some cases, death.